Abstract
Rare gas dimer molecules play an integral role in the formation and efficiency of high-pressure gas lasers. Energy deposited into these gases, for example, from a relativistic electron beam, is rapidly funneled into the lowest lying excited state of the molecules 1Σu and 3Σu). Although fairly extensive spectroscopic data are available on the ground and lowest electronic potentials of the rare gas dimers, very little is known of the higher-lying excited states. These molecular Rydberg levels which lie a few electron volts above 1Σu and 3Σu can contribute to transient nonsaturable optical losses at laser wavelengths, thus limiting the ultimate extraction efficiency and tunability of a laser system. Unfortunately, the existing data for rare gas absorption are fragmentary since previous experiments have relied on a wavelength-by-wavelength acquisition of the data with a tunable dye laser or photographs of transmission spectra over specific wavelength regions.
© 1985 Optical Society of America
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